The Mourning
by Lildaani
Summary: Zoey fights to stay strong in the face of the loss of her mentor, her friend, the embodiment of her team's invincibility. Picks up from the end of The Sacrfice and includes The Passing. Slight ZxF.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Left 4 Dead or any of its characters or settings. I just like to play with them for fun, not profit. Please no one sue me.

_A/N: _This is sort of a combination of what happened in the comic, what happens in the game, and what _I_ thought was going to happen before either one came out. That the comic didn't even mention the events of the Passing left me disappointed, thus this story.

* * *

_The Mourning_

* * *

Water slapped against Zoey's face, waking her to the harsh reality of the storm. She blinked raindrops from her eyes, trying to focus and figure out where she was, what was going on. Trying to sit up, she gasped, arm reflexively going to her aching ribs.

"Hey, hey. It's all right," Francis spoke, gently forcing her back down. "That rock hit you pretty hard. Good thing your skull is so thick, eh?"

His weak chuckle only emphasized how worried he actually was. Her brow furrowed as she tried to think—_god_ her head hurt. They'd had to raise the bridge so they could continue south to the Florida Keys on their "borrowed" sail boat … but then those Tanks …. Four? Four Tanks? What the _hell_. She'd never seen so many at the same time before. The bridge had started to rise—_fuck _was it loud—but then it shuddered beneath their feet … one of the generators must have gone out because Bill jumped back down and—

Her heart thudded against her chest as her eyes widened. "Bill—what happened to Bill?" she asked, grabbing Francis's vest.

"_Cover me! I got this!"_

"_BILL!"_

_The old man disappeared into the crowd of infected, ignoring her cry. Cursing, she brought her rifle up to her shoulder, sighting along the barrel to provide him as much cover as she could. Three of the Tanks went after him, but the fourth—_

"_It's climbing up!" Louis screamed over the gunfire._

_They were already low on ammo. Bill had taken the last Molotov. They were screwed. Royally, side-ways, sunny-side up, eight ways to Sunday screwed. Even so, she turned her attention and her gun toward the new threat._

_It reacted violently to the spray of bullets across its shoulders, pounding the ground at its feet to break lose a chunk of concrete. Raising the rubble above its head, the Tank hurled it at her. She'd been fighting tanks too long to freeze up, but even so—there was just nowhere to dodge to. It hit her._

She couldn't remember anything past being hit with the rock. She looked up into Francis's sad brown eyes, finding her answer there even as he said the words.

"The old man didn't make it."

Her hand fell away from its hold on his vest. Rain continued to splash against her legs, causing her to shiver.

No. Bill couldn't be dead. He wasn't _allowed_ to be dead. She wasn't finished—_oh god what if he is dead what if he died thinking I hate him oh god_—yelling at him yet.

She pushed herself to her feet, so abruptly that she nearly collided with Francis before he fell back. It hurt, but if nothing else the zombie apocalypse was great for increasing your pain tolerance.

"Zoey, you okay, girl?"

She glanced at Louis briefly, noting that, apart from the Witch injury he'd gotten earlier, he seemed fine. "We've got to go back down there."

"Zoey?"

"We have to find him," she insisted, pacing to the edge of the bridge and looking down. "He could still be—"

"Zoey …" Louis tried to interrupt. The pity in his voice made her snap. She whirled around to face him.

"_He might be alive!_" It came out a scream.

The injured man winced. A Hunter screamed in answer somewhere nearby, making her skin crawl.

"Nah, he's a goner," Francis said bluntly. "Horde's just been sitting down there for the last half hour or so. Wouldn't be if there was still someone they could get at, and you know the old buzzard wouldn't just hide in a closet or something. 'Sides, it'd be suicide going down there right now."

Zoey stared at the biker for a moment before water that had nothing to do with the storm clouded her vision. She turned her face away from them, blinking furiously. She was _not_ going to cry, goddamnit.

"Fine," she said, running a hand across her eyes. "Fine," she repeated, louder, looking back at her friends. "We'll wait this out. Keep an eye out for Smokers, but otherwise we should be safe up here. We stay quiet, the horde disperses, and—what the hell was that?"

"Sounded like screeching tires!" Louis exclaimed, craning his neck toward the far end of the bridge.

"I'm going to check it out," Francis said, already halfway up the ladder that went to the top of the bridge.

She started to go after him, but Louis called her back.

"Zoey, don't let him fool you. When you went down, he flipped out. Got right in that Tank's face and practically put his shotgun in its mouth. Craziest shit I've ever seen. But once it was down and the bridge started moving again? ... he wanted to go down to look for Bill, too. He honestly seemed pretty broken up about it. But you were out cold and I ain't going nowhere fast on this leg, so I talked him out of it. Thing is, girl, Bill did this for us."

"I know," she said, surprised her voice was so steady.

"If we go down there now—"

"I know," she cut him off. "I know, Louis. It just—it doesn't seem real, you know? The four of us have been through _so much_ and now he's gone. Just gone. It's just too—I don't—I can't wrap my head around it."

"Hey, c'mon," Louis said, sympathy plain on his face. He reached out and grabbed her hand, tugging her down so he could put an arm over her shoulders. She surrendered easily, resting her throbbing head against his shoulder.

"How are _you_ handling this so well?" she mumbled, closing her eyes against the tears that were still threatening to fall.

"Bill wouldn't want us to sit up here and cry over him, Zoey. He'd want us to keep going, keep fighting until we're all safe." His hand rubbed up and down her shoulder comfortingly. "Thing's'll be okay, you'll see. I have a _good_ feeling about those islands."

She laughed. Sniffled a little. "Your good feelings always turn to shit."

"Bite me, Colonel Sanders!"

Zoey glanced in the direction Francis had disappeared to, quirking her eyebrows in silent question. She got her answer a few moments later when Francis came back, stomping feet making the metal ring as he crossed the upper level and climbed down the ladder.

"We've got a problem."

"Who were you talking to, Francis?" Louis asked curiously.

"That's the problem! This ass in a white suit came cruising up in a race car and demanding that we lower the bridge so he can cross."

"Woah, wait a minute. There's another survivor?" Zoey asked urgently, straightening.

"Four of 'em. Colonel Sanders just did most of the talking. There was—um … big black guy, little guy in a hat, and the cute black chick."

Something bothered her about the way he described them, but she couldn't decide what it was.

Louis was frowning. "What did you tell them?"

"I told 'em that if they wanted to keep going this way, they'd have to figure out how to get to this side of the river, and, uh, that we'd help them once they got here."

"FRANCIS!" Zoey cried. "Why the hell did you tell them that? We just got this stupid bridge _up_. _Bill died_ to put it _up_. Now you want to lower it?"

"Hell no, I don't _want_ to," he scowled. "I don't see what you're getting worked up about. They'll probably bite it trying to get here anyway. It's no big deal."

"No big—Francis, what if they _do_ make it? Huh? What then? Are you gonna just lower the bridge, bring the horde rushing back? Then what? Raise the bridge _again_? Are you going to be the one to jump down when the generator fucks up again?" She didn't realize how close she'd gotten, glaring up at him, daring him to say something stupid. She was glad to see he looked alarmed, even though he was nearly a foot taller than her.

"We could take them with us."

Zoey stopped, slowly turning to face Louis. Then she just stared, unable to form a response.

_The carnage was immense. Everywhere she looked, the zombies were swarming, ripping, tearing, shredding, killing. Feasting like maggots on a fresh corpse. She could see the doc—the writhing pile of infected that had once __**been**__ the doc—"Bill, they're getting slaughtered out there! Stop the train!" When she got no response, she spoke louder, more urgently, "__**Bill? Stop the—**__"_

_A hand on her shoulder, pulling her back from the open side of the train, made her turn. "Zoey. We're not stopping this train."_

"_I—what? Are you kidding?" The grim expression on his face, the hand still pulling her away—it made her furious. She shrugged the hand off harshly, elbow connecting with arm to make him let go. "We already lost the doc because you couldn't __**wait**__ five minutes! Bill, we do this __**all the time!**__ It's what we __**do!**__"_

"_No." His voice wasn't harsh. It was tired. "We look after our own."_

_Seeing him like that, seeing him as a tired old man, ready to give up on everything—it made her angrier. If she knew how, she would have put the brakes on herself. But she didn't. "Bill. Stop. The train." He turned away from her, but he didn't go to the controls. "BILL! __**Stop the damn train!**__"_

_He didn't. The train picked up speed beneath her feet, the engine chugging along louder and louder. It wasn't enough to drown out the screaming._

"—made it this far, they must be carriers, like us," Louis was saying when she tuned back in to their conversation.

"I dunno, Louis, boat's pretty small. I hate being cramped."

"We're not taking them with us," Zoey said flatly. She may not have agreed with Bill's decision back at the military base, but she understood it now. She was _not_ going to lose anyone else. "For one thing, we don't know anything about these people. More importantly, there were barely enough supplies on the boat for four of us. There definitely isn't enough for seven." She walked to the edge of the bridge and looked down, ducking back quickly when a Smoker screamed from somewhere in the crowd. "The horde's still pretty damn thick down there. Otherwise I'd say let's leave right now, before they get here, storm and all."

"Zoey, we can't just leave them," Louis protested.

"You didn't seem to have a problem leaving the doc and everyone else." Only belatedly did she realize how harsh that sounded. She hadn't planned to say it at all.

The wounded man opened his mouth, only to close it again and bow his head. His hands clenched into fists before looking up again. "That was different."

"How? How was it different, Louis?" she demanded.

"Trains take a long time to start and stop, Zoey. We would have been vulnerable to attack if we'd stopped. If a Tank had—" he paused, shaking his head. "We can help these guys from up here. We don't have to put ourselves in danger to do it. Once they gas up the generator, it should work fine long enough for us to let them across and raise it again without a problem."

Zoey bit her lip, thinking it over. "What do you think, Francis?"

"Me? I wouldn't say no to another shot at those Tanks. Besides, I already said I'd help 'em."

She sighed. "I guess we don't have much of a choice, do we?"

* * *

"Hey, Zoey? The horde's starting to clear out."

Frowning, she walked over to look. The crowd was definitely starting to thin out. Even as she watched, a few more perked up and ran out of sight. There was still a Boomer down there somewhere—its gurgling was unmistakable—but otherwise the specials seemed to have cleared out completely.

"Those four must be getting close," she commented thoughtfully. Looking up, she found the boys watching her, waiting for her to say more. Pursing her lips, she made a plan. "Okay. Louis, you climb up top to wait for our friends. Francis, you and I will go down and get supplies from the boat, move it to the other side of the bridge. I don't want to have to rely on those stupid generators again. If they really do make it here, we'll help them lower the bridge. If not—well, we'll be all set to go, anyway."

"Sounds good to me," Francis agreed, offering Louis a hand.

Louis grunted as he got to his feet, favoring his left leg. "I dunno about staying here, Zoey. I—"

"We'll be able to see each other most of the way, Louis," Zoey said, raising a hand. "I know you don't want to stay here by yourself—I don't want to leave you, either. But we need to do this fast."

The injured man eyed the ladder. "Yeah, okay."

He started climbing, pulling with his arms and pushing with his good leg. Zoey winced in sympathy, watching for a long moment to reassure herself that he wouldn't fall.

"Hey, Louis! At least it'll be easier going down, ha ha!" Francis called.

"Hey, climbing up this way is a good workout. I should—do it—more often," he panted.

Zoey rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Francis."

They climbed down to the base of the bridge using a maintenance ladder. The rungs were cold and slick with rain, but they made it down without falling. From there it was just a short jog to where they left the boat. There were a few grunts and murmurs from the nearby buildings, but no zombies attacked them. Zoey tried her hardest not to actually think the words _too easy_. It was just the calm between storms, she knew that.

When they actually got to the boat, she realized the flaw in her plan. "Um, okay, problem. I don't actually know how to move this thing. Do you?"

Francis scratched the back of his head. "Could untie it and let the current do the work. Keep hold of the ropes so it doesn't drift out."

"Or we could use the steering wheel, maybe."

"Or that, yeah."

Together they managed to get the boat to the other side of the bridge and once again safely tied off. That done, Zoey went below deck, grimacing slightly at the bloody corpse that was still there—the only sign they'd found of the boat's previous owners. Rain and river water sloshed and trickled down the stairs, but the interior was sheltered against the worst of it.

"We should do something about him," she muttered, stuffing a bag full of medical supplies and ammo.

Francis grunted as she worked. "I'll take care of it."

Looking through the boxes and cans of food for something to bring back to Louis, she tried to ignore the thumping in the stairwell as Francis dragged the body out. She closed her eyes when she heard the splash.

_Damnit._ That guy had meant something to somebody. Someone out there might still be mourning him, and here they were, treating him like trash. If someone did that to Bill, she'd—

"Zoey?"

Startled, she glanced up, feeling the tears streak down her face as she did. She had a moment to wonder what it was about crying women that made guys get so freaked out before Francis pulled her into a hug. It took her a moment to realize that he was speaking.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't save him … I'm so sorry," he murmured into her hair over and over.

She pushed away just far enough to look him in the eye. He wasn't looking at her, though—his eyes were distant, pained. "It's not your fault, Francis. Bill," she nearly choked on the name. "Bill knew what he was getting into when he jumped down there. He knew it was s–suicide."

Francis shook his head. "I should have covered him better. Should have gone after him, distracted the Tanks so we could both get back to the bridge."

"If you had, Louis and I would be dead instead." Zoey swallowed hard, thinking about it. That Tank had flattened her. "Louis told me what you did. You saved us."

"I didn't—"

"Yes, you did."

He paused. "I did, didn't I?" He cleared his throat. Got back into his show of bravado. "Well, someone had to."

One side of her mouth curled upwards. "Yeah. Someone did." She paused a moment before adding, "Bill would be proud of you."

The cocky smirk vanished from Francis's face. "You think so?"

"Well, he'd say you were an idiot first," she amended, "but he'd be proud."

"Yeah, that sounds more like him."

Zoey rested her head back against Francis's broad chest. His arms went around her, awkwardly at first, but it grew more comfortable as they simply stood there, swaying with the motion of the boat. She could hear his heart beating. It was oddly reassuring.

"Why did you tell those guys that we'd help them?" The question came out as a mutter. It'd been bothering her for a while. Francis wasn't exactly the altruistic sort.

"'Cause …" she felt the answer rumble through his chest. "I thought you'd want to."

"_**Stop the damn train!**__" _Her own voice echoed loudly in her ears._ "It's what we __**do!**__"_

"Oh."

He was right. It was something that she would have wanted to do … before. When they had seemed like an unstoppable fighting force. When they had seemed invincible. When Bill had been alive and Louis hadn't been hurt. But Bill was dead. They weren't unstoppable, they weren't invincible, and she didn't think she could stand it if Louis or Francis died next. Died because of something she wanted to do. She didn't say any of that to Francis.

After a little while, she pushed away from him. "C'mon, let's make sure Louis hasn't slipped and fallen off the bridge." Shrugging the supply bag over one shoulder, Zoey took Francis's hand and started pulling him up the stairs and back into the storm.

* * *

After Zoey and Francis got back to the bridge, they didn't have much longer to wait until the other four showed up.

"Hey, you made it!"

"Of course we made it," the 'cute black chick' grinned. Then she paused, glancing from Louis to Zoey and back. "Hey, I didn't see you from the other side."

"Oh, I'm Louis. I think you already met Francis … and this is Zoey. Sorry, I didn't catch your names."

"I'm Rochelle. This is Ellis … Nick, and Coach," she replied, pointing to the 'little guy in a hat', 'Colonel Sanders', and the 'big black guy' in turn.

"Nice to meet you," Louis smiled. "Where you guys headed?"

"We heard New Orleans was the last hold out," Ellis said. He kept glancing at Zoey, even though he was answering Louis. Creepy. "Y'know, just figured we'd go there. Hey, you folks wanna come with us?"

"Nah, good luck with that. We've had enough of the military," Francis said.

Zoey shot him a hard look. The last thing she wanted to do was start answering questions about what the military was doing. People without a place to go were people who were a danger to her and her own.

But they didn't ask any questions. "Oh, okay."

"So, how we gonna get this bridge down?" Coach asked.

Francis glanced back at Zoey hesitantly. "Uh, I've been thinking about this. We lost a good man getting this goddamn thing up. I'm not real happy about putting it back down."

"Francis, we talked about this!" Louis protested. "We're gonna help them!" He turned back to the other four. "We'll lower the bridge, but you gotta fill up the generator for us to lower it. That helps us both."

Rochelle looked back and forth between Louis and Francis uncertainly. "Are you sure you want to lower the bridge? If you lost someone …."

"We said we'd help you, and we will," Zoey said firmly. "You just fill that generator up and we'll take care of the rest."

Coach nodded. "Hey, listen. Thanks for the help. And if you change your mind once the bridge is down, you're more than welcome to come with us."

"Thanks, but I think we'll be fine on our own," Louis replied.

"Alright. Understood. Y'all keep safe, now."

Zoey watched them go, not sure what she was feeling. The four of them—well, three of them, excluding the scowling, silent Nick—seemed so shiny and new. Like the weight of the zombie apocalypse hadn't sunk in yet. She wanted to grab them and shake them until they were as broken as she felt. She wanted to shout in their faces about how she'd shot her own father dead for no reason, how the man she had started to view as a second father had sacrificed himself to raise this goddamn stupid bridge and _how dare they_ ask her to lower it again. She wanted to scream and cry and demand to know how they could smile and _laugh_—she could _hear _them down there on the street, laughing!—when the world was falling to pieces around them.

"Hey, Zoey? You ready to go kill shit?"

She clenched her jaw and pushed all that to the back of her mind. There would be time for mental breakdowns later. Now was not the time.

"Yeah. Let's go kill shit."

Together, the seven of them removed what was left of the horde that raising the bridge had summoned, and then the newcomers split into pairs to search the town for gas. At first, it was pretty quiet.

"Most of the zombies in the area must already be dead," Louis commented. "This should be easy!"

As if summoned by the thought, a horde screamed in the distance.

"Thanks, Louis!" Francis called.

"Damnit, that isn't my fault."

A yelled curse from a nearby building—Ellis, she thought—followed by a Tank's roar came next.

"Yeah, it pretty much has to be your fault. What'd I say about your optimism jinxing us?"

"Oh, shut up, Francis."

Ellis and Rochelle came running up, each carrying tanks of gas and with a Tank at their heels.

"Shit," Francis said before opening fire.

A second tank and the last two survivors showed up before the first tank was dead, but that was okay. They had it covered.

"THAT … is for Bill," Louis said as the Tanks fell dead.

Zoey felt a manic smile stretch across her face. Yeah. It was.

* * *

"Do you think we should have told them?" Louis asked, waving as the race car zoomed out of sight.

She didn't need to ask about what. _"You're__** carriers**__." _The doctor's voice was loud in her memory._ "Both of you. You don't show any __**symptoms**__ of the virus, but you're still infected. I'm afraid you've been transmitting it all over Philadelphia."_

"No. It's hard enough out there." She glanced skywards. The rain was lightening up, the sun—she'd almost forgotten that it was daytime—starting to peek through the clouds. She looked back down to Louis. "How's your leg?"

He glanced at the sky as well, then around the surprisingly empty street. He half smiled. "I think I can make it to the boat."

"Well, then, what are we waiting for?" Francis asked. Without a word about it, he moved so that Louis could lean on him.

Zoey did the same on the other side, and together, they made their way to the promise of safety.

_A few days later …_

"Ugh … I hate boats," Francis grunted, clutching to the safety rail on one side of the boat.

The sound of vomiting drew his attention to the right, where Louis had just been sick. Again. "Me too, Francis."

"Hey, guys?" Zoey called from the front—the bow or whatever—of the ship. "Land ho."

The sun was low in the sky, silhouetting the land mass in question. Sea birds screeched overhead, riding the hot, tropical breezes that made the palm trees in the distance sway.

"You know what? I think I hate those islands less than I hate this boat," Francis decided.

Zoey smiled.


End file.
